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Faith and Ethical Reasoning in the Mystical Theology of St John of the Cross: A Reasonable Christian Mysticism
Abstract
It is often said that Christian mystics and contemplatives deemphasize reason, especially during advanced stages of spiritual growth such as union with God. St John of the Cross insists that to be united with God in this life through faith, we must empty our intellect of all comprehensions of God in a dark night of unknowing. According to Zwi Werblowsky, John's teaching on faith means the annihilation of the intellect. Werblowsky distinguishes between cognitive and anti–cognitive mysticism, and calls John's mysticism anti–cognitive. According to Werblowsky, cognitive mysticism values distinct, detailed knowledge from divine sources about divine or human realities, while anti–cognitive mysticism rejects such supernatural knowledge as an obstacle to union with God.
... Classical theists, in general, have a tendency toward the naked worship of power on the analogy of the political form of coercive power found in the despot, rather than toward responsive love (see Bushlack 2020). Or at least they have a tendency to put the concept of responsive love in a position subservient to divine omnipotence (see Sanderline 1989Sanderline , 1993. ...
The aim of this article is to philosophically explore the tension between “the God of the philosophers” and “the God of religious experience.” This exploration will focus on the mystical theology of the 16th c. Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. It will be argued that a satisfactory resolution of the aforementioned tension cannot occur on the basis of the monopolar theism that has dominated the Abrahamic religions. That is, a better understanding of mystics in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can occur via dipolar theism as articulated by contemporary process philosophers in the Abrahamic religions, especially the thought of Charles Hartshorne.
... Similarly, John of the Cross's concepts of emptiness (vacío/nada) have been discussed in a number of monographs and articles within the fields of history of religions and spiritual theology. There are important studies on John of the Cross's ethical reasoning and his concept of disinterested love (Sanderlin 1989(Sanderlin , 1993. However, the relationship between ethics and emptiness has not been examined in any particular study. ...
Is Nagarjuna’s emptiness a means to point out the inadequacy of logic and concepts to express the nature of the Ultimate Reality? Similarly, are John of the Cross’s concepts of nothingness and emptiness examples of the apophatic path to God? In sum, is emptiness in Nagarjuna and John of the Cross comparable to the Christian via negativa and the apophatic path to God? If you answered yes to any of these questions, I believe you might be interested in reading this article carefully. You are not alone; in fact most if not all previous discussions of Nagarjuna and John of the Cross in the field of Buddhist-Christian studies have assumed an affirmative answer to the former questions. The comparisons of D. T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton, and the Kyoto school between the Christian God and Buddhist emptiness, as well as the comparisons of members of the Masao Abe‐John Cobb group, have greatly contributed to this apophatic interpretation of emptiness. The enormous contributions of D. T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton, the Kyoto school, and the Abe-Cobb group to the field of Buddhist-Christian studies cannot be sufficiently praised and appreciated. However, the future of Buddhist-Christian studies and Buddhist-Christian dialogue requires a new comparative direction, a shift from comparative theory to comparative praxis, from doctrinal comparisons to more ethical and spiritually relevant comparisons. This new direction provides Buddhist-Christian studies with a more practical orientation necessary for the urgent needs of our planet as well as for the needs of a growing number of members of different religions with pluralist attitudes. By pluralist attitudes, I do not mean a relativistic standpoint, but rather an attitude of intellectual humbleness and dialogical openness toward other religions. That humble and dialogical openness seeks neither to proselytize nor to create a new religion. Rather, the objective is to build bridges of understanding and solidarity among religious communities and to be personally enriched by the contributions of all religions. In order to justify the need for this new and more practically oriented compara
This article examines the similarities between notions about the nature of reality held by some Christian mystics (Thomas Merton and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing) and those proposed by physicists David Bohm and Henry Margenau. My aim is to consider how the implications of certain metaphysical interpretations of modern physics may: (1) hold similarities with Christian mystical notions about reality, and (2) be important for guiding future research in ethics. I further look into the traditional approaches to ethical theory that come out of the foundationalist, relativist, and skeptical realist camps and argue that while skeptical realists such as Timothy Jackson are moving in the right direction, further consideration of what is meant by reality is necessary if we are to traverse the gap between foundationalists and relativists. It is here that Christian ethicists in particular have the opportunity to pick up the metaphysical batons carried by physicists like Margenau and Bohm and mystics like Merton and the author of The Cloud and begin investigating the possibility that ethical theory can be approached from a nondualistic perspective.
This paper is concerned with the nature of mystical knowledge in the higher stages of mystical realization, with particular reference to the teachings of St John of the Cross. Correspondences and parallels with the writings of other mystics may be noticed, but it is not the purpose of this discussion to elucidate these in detail.
A considerable part of mystical literature deals with, or reports on, experiences that are of a cognitive and not merely of an emotive nature. Information is alleged to have been received not only from higher spheres but also about these higher spheres. Detailed, and at times highly complex, theories are put forward regarding the nature and evolution of the cosmos, the essence of man and his place and function in the scheme of things. The writings of many mystics reveal mysteries that have been infused from above, or apprehended ‘from below’ by the development and use of special spiritual or mental organs. What all these higher insights have in common in spite of their great diversity, is their discursive, objective and detailed, elaborate character. Mysticism of this type is a kind of supernal science. It is distinct from ordinary science as regards its origin and its emotional charge, but it is similar to science in terms of its formal structure. The Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah is, I think, an instructive example of this discursive tendency, for the literary output of the kabbalists very largely substitutes a theosophical dialectic for the traditional legal dialectic of the Talmudic rabbis. In the case of the kabbalists this tendency was indebted to the medieval identification of mysticism and prophecy: like prophecy, every illumination by the Holy Spirit was supposed to be a matter of ‘clear and distinct’ contents. But, of course, not every form of cognitive mysticism is related to doctrines of prophecy. Cognitive mysticism can be found everywhere, in the revelation of gnostic mysteries as well as in the quest of modern ‘spiritual’ sciences, such as theosophy and anthroposophy, for hidden and occult truths.
Detachment and Charity in the Mystical Theology of St. John of the Cross: A Practical Ethic for Christian and Secular Humanists
- David Sanderlin
John of the Cross: The Human Experience of Union with God through Love
- David Sanderlin